Talk:Ladas (horse)

Too much information

You could write a book about this horse's career. Things I left out: the cult of St. Ladas, the omen of the dead hedgehog, the lucky sevens, the "Ladasian" Party, the cheering bishops. And that's based just on the stuff that reached the New Zealand press. Tigerboy1966 (talk) 22:16, 19 November 2011 (UTC)

GA Review

This review is transcluded from Talk:Ladas (horse)/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: Moisejp (talk · contribs) 04:58, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

Hi. I'll be reviewing this article for GA. It may take me up to a week to finish the review. Moisejp (talk) 04:58, 17 December 2011 (UTC)
No dead links. No disambiguation links. Moisejp (talk) 04:59, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

GA review (see here for what the criteria are, and here for what they are not)

1. It is reasonably well written.

   a (prose): b (MoS for lead, layout, word choice, fiction, and lists):

   Too many difficult phrases. The lead is too short. It is reasonable well written. The overall difficulty level has been improved.

2. It is factually accurate and verifiable.

   a (references): b (citations to reliable sources): c (OR):

   All the sources check out, reliable sources, no evidence of OR.

3. It is broad in its coverage.

   a (major aspects): b (focused):

   Good.

4. It follows the neutral point of view policy.

   Fair representation without bias:

   NPOV.

5. It is stable.

   No edit wars, etc.:

   Stable, no edit wars.

6. It is illustrated by images, where possible and appropriate.

   a (images are tagged and non-free images have fair use rationales): b (appropriate use with suitable captions):

   Images are all public domain or Wikipedia Commons. The captions are a little on the brief side.

7. Overall:

   Pass/Fail:

I have yet to check the sources, but so far I have noticed the following issues:

• There are too many phrases that I don't understand that I can only imagine is horse-racing lingo. It would be better if these phrases were changed into regular, everyday English.

**Accepted. I sometimes seem to be writing for "General British sports fan" rather than "General reader". Tigerboy1966 (talk) 13:50, 18 December 2011 (UTC)

• • Lead: "Ladas was retired at the end of the season and became a reasonably successful stallion." It wasn't until I read the whole article that it dawned on me that this meant he had some success in producing race-worthy offspring.

 Done- removed "reasonably successful stallion"- I thought it was weak myself.

• • Background: "Ladas's sire, named Hampton, was an excellent stayer who won both the Goodwood Cup and the Doncaster Cup." What does "stayer" mean? I think you should also attribute the designate of "excellent" to someone (the author of the source) in the text itself so that it doesn't sound like OR or subjectivity.

 Done rephrased and took out excellent

• • Background: "also produced a filly called Gas"; I gather a filly is some kind of horse, but beyond that I do not know. Could you at least wiki-link it?

 Done wikilinked filly

• • 1893: two-year-old season: I know you have a wiki-link to Fixed-odds betting#Fractional odds for the first instance of fractional odds, but after that you throw all kinds of fractions out at the reader throughout the article as if the reader was a horse-betting pro. It's certainly not easy for a layman like me. For example (further down): "Isinglass started favourite at 4/5 with Ladas on 13/8" These numbers just go over my head, and it's not easy to compare to what degree each horse's odds represent how favoured it is to win. Is there a way to simplify the explanations, or spell them out more?

 DoneI think the wikilink explained the idea pretty well,but I should have spotted this as a problem as it came up in my last GA review. I will do what I did on that occasion which is to put decimal equivalents in brackets, eg 6/4 (1.5/1).

• • "shook off the opposition in the closing stages to win by one and a half lengths from Bullingdon": Could you wiki-link "length"? And what does "from Bullingdon" mean? Is that a horse's name? If so do you mention the horse before that? I couldn't find any previous mention, though it is possible I missed it. (Ah, I see that later on you do specify Bullingdon as a horse—but that doesn't help the reader at this point in the article.

 Donechanged to "a colt called Bullingdon"

• • 2000 Guineas: could you wiki-link "furlong"?

 Done- sorry about that one

• • 2000 Guineas: "Matchbox "came again" after being headed": could you use a more understandable phrase than "headed"?

 Donedone- changed to overtaken

• • 2000 Guineas: "Immediately after the race, he was offered at odds of 8/13 for the Derby." What Derby? I can only imagine that among horse-racing enthusiasts, it's clear that a certain Derby follows the 2000 Guineas? Also, "was offered at odds of": does that mean bookkeepers valued him at those numbers should he be entered in the Derby? Or does it mean he was invited to the Derby with the promise of such pay? No, now that I think it through again, I think it means the first, doesn't it? But this is just another example of where I can just barely understand the phrase, and if the language were more everyday throughout the article, comprehension would be made a lot easier for the layman like me.

 DoneI have wikilinked Derby once in the lead, but I've done so again here. The Derby is the original one, after which all the others are named. There was a long-running dispute about whether it should be called Epsom Derby, Derby Stakes or The Derby. I have rephrased the sentence to make it a bit clearer. I have also wikilinked "Bookmaker".

• • "He took the lead soon after half way and won "unextended" by two lengths from St Florian." What does "unextended" mean?

 Doneunextended= untested, not put under pressure, easily. Added explanation.

• • "His price for the Derby was immediately shortened to 4/9." Can you use the word "reduced" here?

*** Odds are always long or short, rather than big or small in British English. I will put "reduced" in brackets.

• • "At Epsom on June 6, Ladas was the shortest-priced favourite in the history of the Derby, starting at odds of 2/9 in against six opponents." Sorry if I'm dense, but does this mean he was highly rated? This means if you bet for him you don't get much money back? OK, looking again at Fixed-odds betting#Fractional odds, I think that's what it means. But if you spelled it out more, it'd make it easier.

***added decimal equivalent

• • "Ladas started well, but was held up by Watts and raced in fourth or fifth place in the early stages as Matchbox and Bullingdon made the running." I have no idea what "made the running" means.

***Tricky one. The best non-specialist equivalents of "Held up" would be something like "restrained", "held back", "pulled back". "Made the running" is a fairly common expression in British English.

• • "Matchbox, however, responded well to pressure and, for the first time in his career, Ladas had to be ridden out." Ridden out?

 DoneAbsolutely agree. I wasn't happy about this. Rephrased sentence to avoid the expression.

• • "The early pace was slow, and Watts held Ladas up behind the leaders before moving into the lead just over a furlong out."; "The outsider Priestholme set off at an unsustainably fast pace, followed by Isinglass, with Watts holding up Ladas towards the rear." Does "hold up" have a particular meaning?

***again, the best I can offer would be "restrained".

• • "Ladas was kept in training at four for the 1895 season." Does "at four" mean "as a four-year-old"?

 Doneyes it does- changed.

• • "Carrying top weight of 142 pounds" ??

 Donewikilinked to Handicap race which explains concept.

• • "Ladas had some success at stud". Is "at stud" a correct way to say "at a stud farm"? (By the way, I didn't even know the "stud farm" meaning of "stud"—you should definitely wiki-link this.) And as I mentioned for the lead, I think it would be better to spell out more clearly what "success" mean.

 Doneadded wikilink in lead. And here. Success is explained/illustrated in next clause.

Other points:

• The lead is too short. See Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Lead section#Length. For 28,000 characters, around three paragraphs is recommended. This is not a hard-and-fast rule, but I think you could definitely flesh out some of the points more.
  

**Lead extended

• Lead: "He was named the outstanding British two-year-old of 1893, being unbeaten in four starts." I think I added "named" because I thought at first that's what I thought you meant, but now I think you meant that by having been unbeaten, he was inherently "outstanding"? But that usage of "outstanding" doesn't seem very clear, and it sounds subjective. Could you rewrite that sentence?

 Donechanged outstanding to leading. The rationale for this description is provided in the "1893: two-year-old season" section.

• Background: "Ladas was a bay horse of 'beautiful quality'"; it'd be better if you attributed this description to someone within the text itself.

 Donechanged comment to refer to Equine conformation which is more objective. Took out quotation.

• Background: "as well as the influential sires Bay Ronald and Royal Hampton." What does influential mean here? Who says they were influential?

 Doneagreed. Took out "influential" and Royal Hampton. Added uncontroversial fact on Bay Ronald.

• "The best of his progeny, however, was probably the gelding Epsom Lad, who won the Eclipse Stakes and the Princess of Wales’s Stakes as a four-year-old in 1901." The "probably" here isn't very encyclopedic. Who says that it is probably so?

 DoneRemoved unencyclopedic terms and rephrased. Another example of my assuming too much knowledge.

• "Ladas appeared to be perfectly sound after the race, and the only explanation offered was that the slow pace (the winning time was 1:48.4) had produced a false result." Who offered this explanation?

 DoneExplanation attributed to The Sportsman (1865 newspaper)

• "Ladas was unable to overhaul the four-year-old and Isinglass won a "grand race" by a length with the rest of the field, headed by Throstle, well beaten." I haven't read the sources yet, but I imagine it was the author of the article who described it as a "grand race". Is the author's opinion about this noteworthy? If it is, maybe the quote should be attributed directly to the author within the text.

 Doneremoved description

• "In the final furlong, however, he was challenged by Throstle, and in the closing stages the filly pulled ahead to win by three quarters of a length." So Throstle is "the filly"? How do readers know? (This may go back to me not having a clear understanding of what precisely "filly" means.)

 Donemade it clear in this paragraph that Throstle was a filly.

• The captions maybe meet the minimum requirements, but I think very often people tend to make them longer. Maybe look at WP:CAP and some other GAs for ideas. But if you are happy with the captions as they are, I won't insist that you change them.

 Doneadded a bit more detail to captions. Thanks for recommendation,WP:CAP

I'm going to put this GA Review On Hold. If you resolve the issues above, I will then look through your sources to check if the info matches. If the sources turn out OK, I will pass the article to GA. Moisejp (talk) 07:36, 18 December 2011 (UTC)

No problem. Most of those should be quite easy to fix. Tigerboy1966 (talk) 10:29, 18 December 2011 (UTC)

OK, everything looks good. Congratulations, the article has now passed! Moisejp (talk) 07:02, 19 December 2011 (UTC)

This Englishman says "Fab". Thanks for your patience and advice.Tigerboy1966 (talk) 10:13, 19 December 2011 (UTC)